IIT Kanpur and SBI Foundation Launch ‘SBIF Innovators for Bharat’ to Boost Social Impact Startups

IIT Kanpur has partnered with the SBI Foundation to launch the ‘SBIF Innovators for Bharat’ initiative, aimed at accelerating startups focused on creating meaningful social impact across India.

IIT Kanpur and SBI Foundation

The Startup Incubation and Innovation Centre (SIIC) at the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, in collaboration with the SBI Foundation — the CSR arm of the State Bank of India has launched the ‘Startup Innovations for Social Good’ initiative under the SBIF Innovators for Bharat program. Supported by SBI DFHI Limited and SBI Ventures, the initiative aims to nurture early and growth-stage startups focused on delivering high-impact social solutions through dedicated mentoring and funding support. The program was officially announced at an event held at the IIT Kanpur Outreach Centre in Noida.

The 18-month initiative will support 30 impact-driven startups—24 early-stage and 6 growth-stage across AgriTech, Healthcare, and CleanTech. It will offer structured incubation, continuous mentoring, and domain-specific support, along with networking and investment opportunities, to drive indigenous innovation and address pressing social and environmental challenges.

Prof. Manindra Agrawal, Director of IIT Kanpur stated, “SIIC/FIRST IIT Kanpur has always had a solution-oriented and future-ready approach to strengthen India’s startup ecosystem. This program, supported by the SBI Foundation, is a uniquely-curated collaborative initiative that will help enhance the impact of the startups, empowering communities and ultimately contributing to economic growth and societal well-being.”

Prof. Deepu Philip, Professor-ln-charge, Innovation & Incubation, SIIC-FIRST, IIT Kanpur said, “This collaboration focuses on developing transformative capabilities across critical domains of AgriTech, Healthcare, and CleanTech to achieve wider impact on the society at large. FIRST IIT Kanpur has a proven record of pioneering technological transformations across domains with a portfolio expanding over 400 incubated startups with indigenous technologies.”

Sanjay Prakash, Managing Director, SBI Foundation, said “SBI Foundation’s Innovators for Bharat is an initiative that provides support to high-impact incubators providing incubation/acceleration support to start-ups working to address the most pressing development challenges in the country. Our partnership with one of the top incubators, i.e. SIIC, IIT Kanpur, focuses on many such pressing issues for our country. We are confident that this program will be the cornerstone in identifying, funding and nurturing startups leading the Agritech, Healthcare and Cleantech Innovations.”

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